My wife Annie & I picked up some applesauce from a local farmer at our community farmers’ market.
There was one ingredient on the label: Apples.
It was the best applesauce we ever tasted.
Sadly, it’s increasingly difficult to find applesauce that contains only apples.
This sparked a very deep conversation between us that began with this question:
Why do human beings always seem to have the need to add something more to things that are already perfect and therefore make them worse?
Applesauce is so perfectly amazing and sweet exactly as it is! It’s quite literally a gift from God that grows straight from the earth.
So why then, according to my research, do over 95% of applesauce companies add other ingredients besides apples?
Here’s just a partial list of all the extra ingredients added across the major applesauce companies:
Sugar
High-fructose corn syrup
Corn syrup
Juice concentrates
Various purée concentrates
Ascorbic acid (vitamin C)
Erythorbic acid
Citric acid
Salt
“Natural flavors”
Artificial flavors
Artificial colors
Stevia
Sucralose
Acesulfame potassium
Erythritol
That’s not even a full list, but you get the idea.
And yet this problem goes way beyond applesauce. It runs so deep in the human condition, it corrupts everything it touches.
It ruins marriages, families, friendships, businesses, churches, governments, forests, rivers, oceans, hearts, minds, and bodies.
This world is so beautiful, amazing, wonderful, and it tastes so incredibly good exactly as it is!
Why do we consistently ruin it by trying to alter it?
What I discovered is that we’re trying to find a shortcut to replace these three things:
Patience
Care
Attention
Let me explain.
Everything has natural stages of growth and development before it reaches its fulfillment, whether it’s dating someone, starting a business, raising a child, training a horse, growing a flower, or growing an apple tree.
To have great applesauce, you must understand the developmental stages of an apple tree. You must provide patience, attention, and care as it moves through these stages to pick the apple only when it’s fully ripe, without waiting so long that it becomes rotten.
Universe means one verse, or one song. If you think of the universe as God’s musical creation, we must learn to dance in perfect timing with its rhythm to receive all its wondrous beauty.
This timing requires attention, care, and patience to notice the subtle evolutionary changes in development and move in harmony with life instead of trying to force the process to unfold according to our own egoic desires.
You can’t make a flower bloom by trying to tear its petals open.
To fully receive the wonder and beauty that life has to offer, we must be deeply present with the moment.
Patience, care, and attention are the three essential qualities of love.
Patience gives something the time it needs.
Attention allows us to notice what those needs are.
Care moves us to respond to those needs.
Love is the synergy of all three elements.
We are called to bring this patience, care, and attention to every aspect of our life: our health regimen, our spiritual practice, our personal relationships, our stewardship of the Earth.
This small farmer brought patience, care, and attention to his apple orchard, and that’s what made his applesauce so spectacular. God did the rest.
Want to have some applesauce?
The secret ingredient is always love, not sugar.
— Brian Piergrossi